We are delighted to announce that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will be working together with Global Initiatives, as co-organisers for the 5th annual Responsible Business Forum on Sustainable Development, held once again at Marina Bay Sands Singapore, 22 - 24 November 2016.

As Cambodia crosses the threshold into the middle income country category, government intervention in education is highly justified and desirable to avoid the so called ‘Middle Income Trap’ also called ‘low skills trap’ by ...

It would be tempting to think that Cambodia would need to invest in human capital first before reaping the benefits in terms of economic well-being. Fortunately, the East Asian experience shows that this wasn’t the case. The upgrading of human capital and economic and industrial upgrading wasn’t pursued in a simple linear fashion. Take the three countries mentioned earlier: all countries pursued human capital upgrading and economic and industrial upgrading almost simultaneously. Whether through active targeting of industrial sectors (Korea and Malaysia), following market forces (Thailand) or fostering domestic enterprises (Korea), all these countries ensured that the education and training system met the requirements of economic and industrial upgrading, facilitated the expansion of decent employment and encouraged the progressive investment in human capital...

To attain environmental sustainability and sustain Cambodia’s path to development, it is therefore more than timely that the government has recently decided to initiate an environmental governance reform...

During the past five years, the UN-REDD programme and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) have together provided technical and financial support for the Royal Government of Cambodia to become “ready” to implement REDD+ activities ...

But the term ‘gold’ should also be used for another important resource in Cambodia — water. Water is central to agricultural production including paddy rice, through the expansion of irrigation...

With an average GDP growth of around seven percent in the last decade, Cambodia is much wealthier and has just become a Lower Middle-Income Country. But do people have enough to live the life they value? ...

Despite its reclassification as a Lower Middle-Income Country, Cambodia’s transition from a Least Developed Country will take perhaps another ten years while its human asset and economic vulnerability indices remain within the LDC category..

To expand the scope for public action, UNDP will focus assistance on public institutions for poverty reduction and resilience and on strengthening voice and participation. The focus will be on upgrading value chains, financing development sustainably, building resilience and fostering participation. An important tool will be fostering partnerships in the context of transition.

The 2015 Human Development Report ‘Work for Human Development’ examines the links, both positive and negative, between work and human development in a rapidly changing world of work.